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Abstract While there are many different frameworks seeking to identify what benefits young people might derive from participation in informal STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) learning (ISL), this paper argues that the sector would benefit from an approach that foregrounds equity and social justice outcomes. We propose a new model for reflecting on equitable youth outcomes from ISL that identifies five key areas: (1) Grounded fun; (2) STEM capital; (3) STEM trajectories; (4) STEM identity work; and (5) Agency+ . The model is applied to empirical data (interviews, observations and youth portfolios) collected over one year in four UK-based ISL settings with 33 young people (aged 11–14), largely from communities that are traditionally under-represented in STEM. Analysis considers the extent to which participating youth experienced equitable outcomes, or not, in relation to the five areas. The paper concludes with a discussion of implications for ISL and how the model might support ongoing efforts to reimagine ISL as vehicle for social justice. 

In this article, we explore how Science Center educators and youth collaboratively investigated the characteristics of the space that had made some visitors feel less welcome, and how our collaborative worked together to address the issues identified. By bringing to the forefront youth perspectives of their own lives and histories, youth and adults partnered to examine, critique, and re-design the Science Center and challenge historical representations of science. Specifically, the youth participants led the co-design of a new classroom based on the life and work of Dr. Katherine Johnson, a pioneering mathematician profiled as one of NASA’s “hidden figures,” who calculated the orbital mechanics for the first American in space. The youth participants were also essential to the development of a series of displays and activities about women of color in science. Designing these new features of the Science Center together required the careful development of a new and shared understanding of what the Science Center could be. https://www.astc.org/astc-dimensions/reclaiming-our-science-center-youth-co-design-of-the-dr-katherine-johnson-room/ 

This study investigates how educators, researchers and youth collaboratively sought to engage in a socio-spatial political project of disrupting and transforming normalized injustices against youth of Color in STEM in their local Science Center. Over the course of a year (and still on-going), educators, researchers and youth worked on a project they named, “Reclaiming the Science Center” because it focused on re-designing the text, images and experiences in differences spaces of the Science Center towards making visible and amplifying the lived lives and wisdom of people of Color and women. Drawing upon conceptual frameworks of social-spatial justice and social practice theories, along with longitudinal critical ethnography, we report on the co-creation of spaces, both discursive and material, for critique and imagination of spatial representation. We also describe how educators centered youth-authored material artifacts toward expanding presence. Implications for working towards social-spatial justice in science centers are discussed.